Official information page about InfraStrata plc's oil and gas exploration project using conventional drilling technology at California Quarry in Dorset.
Official company information page about InfraStrata plc's oil and gas exploration project at California Quarry in Dorset. The proposed operation will only involve conventional drilling for oil and gas and will never – either now or in the future – involve the process of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) for shale gas. We are exploring for oil and gas in porous sandstone and limestones using conven
tional drilling methods that have been used elsewhere in Dorset for many decades. The three-acre site for the exploratory well lies within California Quarry, southwest of Swanage in Dorset. It is on a previously quarried area of a working quarry and has been chosen carefully to minimise the impact on neighbours. It is screened by mature trees to the north and not overlooked by residential properties on the other three sides. The project includes the construction of an enclosed well site compound within the three-acre site comprising a flat stone surface, soil screening, containment bunds and a security fence. Using conventional directional drilling, the well will reach a depth of over 2,000 metres (over 6,600 feet) below the sea to the south of the site. There are three phases to the drilling process.
1. Construction of the wellsite - expected to take up to eight weeks. Likely to be undertaken during winter 2014/15.
2. The assembly and installation of drilling equipment and facilities and drilling of the exploratory well - expected to take up to eight weeks and likely to take place in late winter 2014/15 or early next winter (2015/16).
3. Should oil or gas be encountered, the drilling rig would be demobilised and InfraStrata would undertake a long-term test with the well to establish whether it could produce oil or gas commercially using conventional methods. Any subsequent development of the site would require planning permission. If no commercial oil or gas are encountered, then the well will be plugged and abandoned and the wellsite restored to its original state.
